Short answer
No. The Vishnu Purana measures the sun at a hundred thousand leagues from the earth. It puts the moon as far again beyond the sun, and the lunar constellations beyond the moon. The Bhagavata Purana also puts the moon above the sun. In fact the moon is the nearest of them, and the stars are the farthest. The same Puranas ring the earth with seven continents and seven seas. Each is twice the size of the one before, and the outer lands have kings and four castes. Hindu astronomers had to set these chapters aside to get the sky right. The Surya Siddhanta puts the moon lowest and the stars highest. The Qur'an gives no distances and no order for the sun and moon. It says each swims along in its own orbit.
Full explanation
The Puranas on the sun, the moon and the stars
The Puranas belong to smriti, the remembered tradition. The Vishnu Purana is a dialogue in which the sage Parasara teaches Maitreya, and its second book describes the world. In chapter 7 it measures the sky upward from the earth in yojanas (an old Indian measure of distance), which its English translator, H. H. Wilson, renders as leagues. First comes the sun, then the moon, then the lunar constellations, then Mercury and the other planets. The Sanskrit is plain: bhumer yojanalakshe, a lakh (100,000) of yojanas from the earth, and the moon's orb a lakh beyond the sun. Wilson notes that the Padma, Kurma and Vayu Puranas give a similar account. The Bhagavata Purana also puts the moon a laksha (100,000) of yojanas above the sun. In the same verse it ties the moon's quick course to the months and fortnights people count.
“The solar orb is situated a hundred thousand leagues from the earth; and that of the moon an equal distance from the sun. At the same interval above the moon occurs the orbit of all the lunar constellations. The planet Budha (Mercury) is two hundred thousand leagues above the lunar mansions.”
“A similar account of the situations and distances of the planets occurs in the Padma, Kúrma, and Váyu Puráńas. The Bhágavata has one or two varieties, but they are of no great importance.”
“(At a distance of) Laksha Yojanas above the sun is seen the moon; in two fortnights it enjoys one Samvatsara of the sun, in two days and a quarter one month and in one day one Paksha of the sun; sometimes its speed becomes quicker than that of the sun.”
The Puranas on the earth
Maitreya asks for a description of the earth. Parasara names seven continents, each surrounded by one of seven seas. The seas are of salt water, sugar-cane juice, wine, clarified butter, curds, milk and fresh water. Jambu-dwipa lies at the centre, with Mount Meru, and the text gives its height and depth in yojanas, an old measure of distance. Vaishnavas honour the ocean of milk as the place where Vishnu rests. This page looks only at the chapter's geography. The next chapter places India (Bharata) in this system, between the ocean and the Himalaya, and gives its size. The outer continents are rings. Each ocean and each continent is twice the size of the one before. They have kings and rivers. On five of them, the people are divided into four castes, which the text matches with Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra. Wilson, the translator, notes that most Puranas share this geography in all its main features.
“The seven great insular continents are Jambu, Plaksha, Sálmali, Kuśa, Krauncha, Śáka, and Pushkara: and they are surrounded severally by seven great seas; the sea of salt water (Lavańa), of sugar-cane juice (Ikshu), of wine (Surá), of clarified butter (Sarpi), of curds (Dadhi), of milk (Dugdha), and of fresh water (Jala). Jambu-dwípa is in the centre of all these: and in the centre of this continent is the golden mountain Meru. The height of Meru is eighty-four thousand Yojanas; and its depth below the surface of the earth is sixteen thousand.”
“The country that lies north of the ocean, and south of the snowy mountains, is called Bhárata, for there dwelt the descendants of Bharata. It is nine thousand leagues in extent, and is the land of works, in consequence of which men go to heaven, or obtain emancipation.”
“In this manner the seven island continents are encompassed successively by the seven oceans, and each ocean and continent is respectively of twice the extent of that which precedes it.”
“In the five Dwípas, worthy Brahman, from Plaksha to Śáka, the length of life is five thousand years, and religious merit is divided amongst the several castes and orders of the people. The castes are called Áryaka, Kuru, Vivása, and Bháví, corresponding severally with Brahman, Kshetriya, Vaiśya, and Súdra.”
“The geography of the Puráńas occurs in most of these works; and in all the main features, the seven Dwípas, seven seas, the divisions of Jambu-dwípa, the situation and extent of Meru, and the subdivisions of Bhárata, is the same.”
What the sky shows
The moon is on average about 384,400 kilometres from the earth. The sun is about 150 million kilometres away, about 390 times farther. The moon is the nearest body in the sky, and it passes in front of the sun at every solar eclipse, which anyone can watch. The planets are far beyond the moon, and the stars far beyond them all. So the Vishnu Purana and the Bhagavata get the order wrong where it is easiest to check. The moon is not beyond the sun. Nor do the lunar constellations lie just beyond the moon, below the planets. The earth has been mapped and sailed around. There is no ring of continents beyond the salt sea, each twice the size of the last.
The Moon is an average of 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometres) from the Earth. The Sun, the solar system's only star, is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometres) from the Earth, so it is about 390 times farther away than the Moon.
“The solar orb is situated a hundred thousand leagues from the earth; and that of the moon an equal distance from the sun. At the same interval above the moon occurs the orbit of all the lunar constellations. The planet Budha (Mercury) is two hundred thousand leagues above the lunar mansions.”
“(At a distance of) Laksha Yojanas above the sun is seen the moon; in two fortnights it enjoys one Samvatsara of the sun, in two days and a quarter one month and in one day one Paksha of the sun; sometimes its speed becomes quicker than that of the sun.”
“In this manner the seven island continents are encompassed successively by the seven oceans, and each ocean and continent is respectively of twice the extent of that which precedes it.”
Hindu astronomers set the Puranas aside
India's own astronomers put the moon nearest and the stars farthest away. They did it by leaving these chapters behind. The Surya Siddhanta, the classic book of Hindu astronomy, puts the star groups highest and the moon lowest, below the sun, Venus and Mercury. In the sixth century, Varahamihira set out the stories of the Head (Rahu). He kept the story that the Head receives a share of the offering. But he denied that it causes eclipses. Al-Biruni, a scholar who studied India around the year 1030, quotes him. An eclipse of the moon is the moon entering the earth's shadow. An eclipse of the sun is the moon covering it. In the seventh century, Brahmagupta objected in the name of the Veda and the Smriti. He named Varahamihira, Aryabhata and others as teaching, against the dogma, that eclipses come from the moon and the earth's shadow. Yet al-Biruni, who calls him their most distinguished astronomer, notes that he worked out both kinds of eclipse from the moon and the earth's shadow himself. The pressure came from the scriptures, not from his science. Al-Biruni gave the reason Brahmagupta sided with the Head. He was one of the Brahmins who read in their Puranas that the sun is lower than the moon.
“A circle within the Brahma-egg is styled the orbit of the ether (vyoman): within that is the revolution of the asterisms (bha); and likewise, in order, one below the other, Revolve Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the sun, Venus, Mercury, and the moon; below, in succession, the Perfected (siddha), the Possessors of Knowledge (vidyâdhara), and the clouds.”
“As has been mentioned by scholars who enjoy the help of God, an eclipse of the moon is her entering the shadow of the earth, and an eclipse of the sun consists in this that the moon covers and hides the sun from us.”
“Some people think that the eclipse is not caused by the Head. This, however, is a foolish idea, for it is he in fact who eclipses, and the generality of the inhabitants of the world say that it is the Head who eclipses. The Veda, which is the word of God from the mouth of Brahman, says that the Head eclipses, likewise the book Smṛiti, composed by Manu, and the Saṁhitâ, composed by Garga the son of Brahman. On the contrary, Varâhamihira, Śrîsheṇa, Âryabhaṭa, and Vishṇucandra maintain that the eclipse is not caused by the Head, but by the moon and the shadow of the earth, in direct opposition to all (to the generality of men), and from enmity against the just-mentioned dogma.”
“Why do you, after having spoken such words, then begin to calculate the diameter of the moon in order to explain her eclipsing the sun, and the diameter of the shadow of the earth in order to explain its eclipsing the moon? Why do you compute both eclipses in agreement with the theory of those heretics, and not according to the views of those with whom you think it proper to agree?”
“For as he was one of the Brahmans who read in their Purâṇas that the sun is lower than the moon, and who therefore require a head biting the sun in order that he should be eclipsed”
Varahamihira lived from about 505 to 587 CE. Brahmagupta wrote his Brahmasphutasiddhanta in 628 CE. Al-Biruni, writing in 1030, placed Varahamihira 526 years before his own time, about 504 CE.
Where the Puranas stand
Many Hindus reply that the Puranas are smriti (remembered tradition), and that revelation is the Veda. Vivekananda, a Hindu monk, told the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 that the Hindus received their religion through their revelation, the Vedas. Dayananda, a reformer of the nineteenth century who founded the Arya Samaj, said that the Puranas that teach image worship go against the Vedas. But the Puranas claim a higher rank for themselves. The Bhagavata says that when the Veda was divided into four, the Itihasas and the Puranas were named the Fifth Veda. The Sanskrit is itihasa-puranam ca pancamo veda ucyate. It claims equal rank with the Vedas in spiritual knowledge (brahma-sammitam). These books tell the story of Krishna's birth, which the festival of Janmashtami celebrates, and the lives of the avatars.
“The Hindus have received their religion through their revelation, the Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without end. It may sound ludicrous to this audience, how a book can be without beginning or end. But by the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual law discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical and spiritual relation between soul and souls and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits were there before their discovery and would remain even if we forgot them. The discoverers of these laws are called Rishis, and we honor them as perfected beings, and I am glad to tell this audience that some of the very best of them were women.”
Dayananda Saraswati, founder of the Arya Samaj, argues in the revised second edition of his Satyarth Prakash, a book that also gives a chapter to attacking the Qur'an, that no verse of the Vedas speaks of invoking God into an image, bringing it to life, or worshipping it; the verses recited for these rites, he says, come from the Tantras, not the Vedas. To the view that a god comes into the image when called by mantras and leaves when the rite ends, he answers that God, who fills all things, neither comes nor goes. He reads Yajur Veda 32.3 (na tasya pratima asti) and the Kena Upanishad's refrain as forbidding image worship, calls the Tantras and Puranas that enjoin it contrary to the Vedas, and denies that image worship is a first step toward God.
“Four Vedas,—the Righ, the Yajus, the Sāman, and the Atharvan, were separated; the Itihasas and the Purānas, being designated as the Fifth Veda.”
“The mighty sage composed for the supreme good of the world this blessed Purāna, supremely conducive to welfare, containing a record of His achievements whose praise dispels darkness of mind, and claiming equality of rank with the Vedas in respect of spiritual knowledge.”
What the Puranas state, and what the Qur'an does not
The Puranas make one kind of claim. They state measured distances, an order for the sun, moon and planets, and a map of peopled continents. Anyone can see and measure these things, and these chapters are wrong about them. The Qur'an gives no measured distance and no order for the sun and the moon. Qur'an 71:16 says the moon is a light in the heavens, and gives no distance or order. Qur'an 67:5 speaks of the lights of the night sky and of missiles. Ibn Kathir, a 14th-century commentator on the Qur'an, explains these as shooting flames below the stars. Their purpose is unseen. Sahih al-Bukhari 3199 speaks of the sun's prostration beneath the Throne. Its fuller version in Sahih Muslim says people notice nothing unusual in the sun's course. None of these gives a number or an order that the sky could contradict. The Qur'an itself says that none in the heavens or on earth knows the unseen except Allah (﷾).
“The solar orb is situated a hundred thousand leagues from the earth; and that of the moon an equal distance from the sun. At the same interval above the moon occurs the orbit of all the lunar constellations. The planet Budha (Mercury) is two hundred thousand leagues above the lunar mansions.”
“In the five Dwípas, worthy Brahman, from Plaksha to Śáka, the length of life is five thousand years, and religious merit is divided amongst the several castes and orders of the people. The castes are called Áryaka, Kuru, Vivása, and Bháví, corresponding severally with Brahman, Kshetriya, Vaiśya, and Súdra.”
“"'See ye not how Allah has created the seven heavens one above another, "'And made the moon a light in their midst, and made the sun as a (Glorious) Lamp?”
“And we have, (from of old), adorned the lowest heaven with Lamps, and We have made such (Lamps) (as) missiles to drive away the Evil Ones, and have prepared for them the Penalty of the Blazing Fire.”
Explains the lamps as the planets and fixed stars placed in the lowest heaven. He says "We have made them missiles" refers to lamps as a kind, not to the lamps themselves, because the devils are not pelted with the stars that are in the sky but with shooting flames below them, which may be drawn from them; and Allah knows best.
Abu Dharr reports that at sunset the Prophet (ﷺ) asked him whether he knew where the sun goes, and he answered that Allah and His Messenger know best. He said: it goes until it prostrates beneath the Throne and asks permission, and permission is given. A time is coming when its prostration will not be accepted and permission will not be given. It will be told to go back the way it came, and it will rise from the place where it sets. He said this is the meaning of Qur'an 36:38.
Abu Dharr reports that one day the Prophet (ﷺ) asked his Companions whether they knew where the sun goes. They said that Allah and His Messenger know best. He said: it runs until it reaches its resting place beneath the Throne and falls down prostrate, and it stays so until it is told to rise and go back to where it came from. It goes back and comes up in the morning from its rising place, and the same happens again. Then it runs, and people see nothing unusual in it, until it reaches that resting place beneath the Throne. It is told to rise and come up from the place where it sets, and it will rise from its place of setting. He then asked whether they knew when that will be. It is, he said, when faith will not benefit a soul that did not believe before, or earn good through its faith: the words of Qur'an 6:158.
“Say: None in the heavens or on earth, except Allah, knows what is hidden: nor can they perceive when they shall be raised up (for Judgment).”
What the Qur'an says about the sun and moon
On the very subject where the Puranas give numbers, the Qur'an gives none. It gives no distance for the sun or the moon, and no order between them. It says that the sun may not catch up the moon, and that each swims along in its own orbit. It says that the sun and the moon follow courses exactly computed. God (﷾) measured out stages for the moon, so that people can count the years. When the sun was eclipsed on the day the Prophet's (ﷺ) son Ibrahim died, people said it was for his death. He told them the sun and the moon do not eclipse for anyone's death or birth. The Qur'an points from the sun and the moon to their Maker. People are told not to bow to them, but to Allah (﷾) who created them.
“It is not permitted to the Sun to catch up the Moon, nor can the Night outstrip the Day: Each (just) swims along in (its own) orbit (according to Law).”
“It is He Who created the Night and the Day, and the sun and the moon: all (the celestial bodies) swim along, each in its rounded course.”
“The sun and the moon follow courses (exactly) computed;”
“It is He Who made the sun to be a shining glory and the moon to be a light (of beauty), and measured out stages for her; that ye might know the number of years and the count (of time). Nowise did Allah create this but in truth and righteousness. (Thus) doth He explain His Signs in detail, for those who understand.”
Al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba reports that the sun eclipsed on the day the Prophet's (ﷺ) son Ibrahim died, and people said it had eclipsed because of Ibrahim's death. The Prophet said that the sun and the moon do not eclipse for the death or the birth of anyone, and told them to pray and call on Allah when they see an eclipse.
“Among His Signs are the Night and the Day, and the Sun and the Moon. Do not prostrate to the sun and the moon, but prostrate to Allah, Who created them, if it is Him ye wish to serve.”
The replies, answered
Swami Vivekananda, Paper on Hinduism, World's Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 19 September 1893
“The Hindus have received their religion through their revelation, the Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without end. It may sound ludicrous to this audience, how a book can be without beginning or end. But by the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual law discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical and spiritual relation between soul and souls and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits were there before their discovery and would remain even if we forgot them. The discoverers of these laws are called Rishis, and we honor them as perfected beings, and I am glad to tell this audience that some of the very best of them were women.”
Cited for
The Puranas are smriti, not revelation. Revelation is the Veda. A Hindu is not bound by what a Purana says about the sky. Scripture speaks with authority only where the senses cannot reach.
The response
The Puranas do not rank themselves so low. The Bhagavata says the Itihasas and the Puranas were designated the Fifth Veda, and claims equality of rank with the Vedas in spiritual knowledge. The story of Krishna's birth that Janmashtami celebrates, and the lives of the avatars, are told in these books. Wilson notes that most Puranas share the same geography, so this is not one stray passage. And if the Puranas can be set aside wherever they can be checked, the reply grants the point. Books that a great part of the tradition treats as a Veda contain false claims about the world. Some add that scripture has authority only where the senses cannot reach. But these chapters do speak where the senses reach, and there they fail. These chapters are wrong where they can be checked, so they give no reason to trust them where they cannot.
Where it lands — Whether a Hindu keeps the Puranas or sets them aside, their account of the sky stands uncorrected. Setting them aside concedes it.
Mysteries of the Sacred Universe (2000)
Argues that the cosmology of the Bhagavata Purana is not a naive flat earth but a sophisticated system with several levels of meaning, and that the rings of Bhu-mandala, the earth-disc of the fifth book, correspond closely to the orbits of the planets: ancient knowledge of the solar system expressed in geographic imagery.
Cited for
The Puranic cosmos is symbolic, a spiritual geography. The rings of Bhu-mandala are the orbits of the planets, drawn as a map.
The response
The text itself gives the measure and the starting point. The sun is a lakh of yojanas from the earth, and the moon a lakh beyond the sun. It orders the bodies anyone can see, and the Bhagavata ties the moon's course to the months people count. It places India in the same system, with its extent, and it gives the outer continents kings, rivers and four castes. Orbits do not have kings and castes. Brahmins read these chapters plainly: about 1030 al-Biruni found them reading in their Puranas that the sun is lower than the moon. And if these chapters are symbolic because they fail, on what ground are the same books' chapters about the gods and the avatars literal?
Where it lands — The text measures from the earth and peoples its continents; a symbolic reading is brought to it after the facts were known.
Surya Siddhanta 12.30-31 — chapter 12, verses 30-31
“A circle within the Brahma-egg is styled the orbit of the ether (vyoman): within that is the revolution of the asterisms (bha); and likewise, in order, one below the other, Revolve Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the sun, Venus, Mercury, and the moon; below, in succession, the Perfected (siddha), the Possessors of Knowledge (vidyâdhara), and the clouds.”
Cited for
Hindu astronomers knew that the moon is nearest and that eclipses come from shadows. Hindus were never ignorant of the sky.
The response
That is true, and India's astronomers deserve honour for it. But they got the sky right by leaving the Puranas behind. The Surya Siddhanta reverses the Puranas' order and puts the moon lowest. Varahamihira denied that the Head causes eclipses. Brahmagupta defended the Head in the name of the Veda and the Smriti, and named Aryabhata and Varahamihira among those who taught otherwise. Yet he computed eclipses by their method himself, as al-Biruni points out. Al-Biruni even offers him an excuse: he wrote the book at only thirty, and a fate like that of Socrates may have befallen him. Al-Biruni saw the reason: the Brahmins read in their Puranas that the sun is lower than the moon.
Where it lands — The error lies in the texts, not in Indian minds. The astronomers had to leave the texts to correct it.
Surya Siddhanta 12.30-31 — chapter 12, verses 30-31
“A circle within the Brahma-egg is styled the orbit of the ether (vyoman): within that is the revolution of the asterisms (bha); and likewise, in order, one below the other, Revolve Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the sun, Venus, Mercury, and the moon; below, in succession, the Perfected (siddha), the Possessors of Knowledge (vidyâdhara), and the clouds.”
Cited for
The Surya Siddhanta is itself a sacred text. It says the Sun revealed it to Maya. So Hindu revelation had the right order all along.
The response
Then two books held sacred give opposite orders for the same visible bodies. The Surya Siddhanta puts the moon below the sun; the Vishnu Purana and the Bhagavata put it above. Both cannot come from the One who made the sun and the moon. The books that fail are the Puranas, which the Bhagavata ranks as the Fifth Veda.
Where it lands — If both are sacred, the sacred texts contradict each other on a fact anyone can check, and the Puranas are the ones that are wrong.
Vishnu Purana 2.7 — book 2, chapter 7
“The solar orb is situated a hundred thousand leagues from the earth; and that of the moon an equal distance from the sun. At the same interval above the moon occurs the orbit of all the lunar constellations. The planet Budha (Mercury) is two hundred thousand leagues above the lunar mansions.”
Cited for
No one knows how long a Puranic yojana is, and Wilson was a missionary-minded translator. The numbers cannot be judged.
The response
The order does not depend on the unit. The Sanskrit says the sun's orb is a lakh of yojanas from the earth. The moon's orb is a lakh from the sun (lakshad divakarasyapi mandalam shashinah sthitam). The lunar constellations then lie a lakh beyond the moon. Whatever a yojana measures, the moon is put beyond the sun and the lunar constellations beyond the moon. Dutt, a Hindu translator, renders the Bhagavata the same way: the moon is seen a laksha of yojanas above the sun.
Where it lands — The order is wrong in any unit and in any translation.
Vishnu Purana 2.2 — book 2, chapter 2
“The seven great insular continents are Jambu, Plaksha, Sálmali, Kuśa, Krauncha, Śáka, and Pushkara: and they are surrounded severally by seven great seas; the sea of salt water (Lavańa), of sugar-cane juice (Ikshu), of wine (Surá), of clarified butter (Sarpi), of curds (Dadhi), of milk (Dugdha), and of fresh water (Jala). Jambu-dwípa is in the centre of all these: and in the centre of this continent is the golden mountain Meru. The height of Meru is eighty-four thousand Yojanas; and its depth below the surface of the earth is sixteen thousand.”
Cited for
Meru and the lokas are unseen realms, like the Qur'an's seven heavens and the Throne. If the Qur'an's unseen cannot be tested, neither can ours.
The response
Unseen realms cannot be measured, and this page makes no claim about them. Whatever is said of the higher lokas (the worlds above the earth), these chapters speak of the sun and the moon. Anyone can see them, and the text measures them from the earth. It puts Meru at the centre of Jambu-dwipa, the continent that holds India. It gives Meru's height, and its depth below the surface of the earth. The chapters lay the continents around it on this earth, with kings, rivers and castes. The Qur'an's heavens and Throne carry no distance, no order of the planets and no peopled lands.
Where it lands — The Puranas place their system on the measurable earth and sky; that part is not the unseen, and it is wrong.
Qur'an 71:15-16 — Surat Nuh (Noah), verses 15-16
“"'See ye not how Allah has created the seven heavens one above another, "'And made the moon a light in their midst, and made the sun as a (Glorious) Lamp?”
Cited for
Your Qur'an puts the moon in the midst of the seven heavens (71:16), beyond the stars of the lowest heaven. It makes the same mistake.
The response
The verse says God (﷾) made the moon a light "in them", the heavens, and gives no distance and no order. Arabic can say a thing is "in them" when it is in one of them. The commentator al-Qurtubi (13th century) reads it as the lowest heaven, the one the Qur'an says God (﷾) adorned with the lights we see. The site's page on Qur'an 71:16 sets this out in full.
Where it lands — The Vishnu Purana puts the moon a measured distance beyond the sun; Qur'an 71:16 gives no measure and no order that the sky could contradict.
Qur'an 67:5 — Surat al-Mulk (The Sovereignty), verse 5
“And we have, (from of old), adorned the lowest heaven with Lamps, and We have made such (Lamps) (as) missiles to drive away the Evil Ones, and have prepared for them the Penalty of the Blazing Fire.”
Cited for
Your Qur'an says the stars are missiles thrown at devils (67:5). Stars are distant suns, so that is also a false claim about the sky.
The response
The verse says God (﷾) adorned the lowest heaven with lamps and made such lamps missiles. The Qur'an's other verses name the missile: a flame that pursues. Ibn Kathir explains that the devils are not pelted with the stars in the sky but with shooting flames below them. The verse speaks of what anyone can see: the lights of the night sky and the streaks of meteors. The purpose it gives, guarding heaven, belongs to the unseen. The site's page on Qur'an 67:5 answers the objection in full.
Where it lands — The verse speaks of what people see, and its purpose is unseen. It gives no distance or order that the sky could contradict.
Sahih al-Bukhari 3199 — Kitab Bad' al-Khalq (The Beginning of Creation), hadith 3199
Abu Dharr reports that at sunset the Prophet (ﷺ) asked him whether he knew where the sun goes, and he answered that Allah and His Messenger know best. He said: it goes until it prostrates beneath the Throne and asks permission, and permission is given. A time is coming when its prostration will not be accepted and permission will not be given. It will be told to go back the way it came, and it will rise from the place where it sets. He said this is the meaning of Qur'an 36:38.
Cited for
Your Bukhari says the sun goes each night to prostrate beneath the Throne (3199). That is no better than a sun beneath a moon.
The response
The hadith describes the sun's obedience to God (﷾), not a journey anyone could watch. Its fuller version in Sahih Muslim says people notice nothing unusual in the sun's course. The Throne is above all creation, so the sun is beneath it wherever it is. The site's page on Sahih al-Bukhari 3199 sets out the report and what the commentators said.
Where it lands — The report speaks of an unseen act of worship and makes no claim about distance or order that the sky contradicts.
Qur'an 18:86 — Surat al-Kahf (The Cave), verse 86
“Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water: Near it he found a People: We said: "O Zul-qarnain! (thou hast authority,) either to punish them, or to treat them with kindness."”
Cited for
Your Qur'an has the sun setting in a spring of murky water (18:86).
The response
The verse says Dhul-Qarnayn "found it" setting there. It tells what a traveller saw at the western edge, as anyone on a shore sees the sun sink into the sea. Four verses later he "found it rising on a people". No reader takes that to mean the sun comes up out of those people. Elsewhere the Qur'an says the sun swims in its own orbit. The site's page on the muddy spring answers this in full.
Where it lands — The verse reports a traveller's view, and the Qur'an elsewhere gives the sun its own orbit.
Qur'an 65:12 — Surat al-Talaq (Divorce), verse 12
“Allah is He Who created seven Firmaments and of the earth a similar number. Through the midst of them (all) descends His Command: that ye may know that Allah has power over all things, and that Allah comprehends, all things in (His) Knowledge.”
Cited for
Your Qur'an has seven earths (65:12), which is no different from the Puranas' seven continents. Your commentators give them distances, and Ibn Abbas puts a prophet like yours in each.
The response
The verse gives a number and nothing more. It gives no size, no place, no sea around them, no rulers and no castes. The authentic hadith on them, in both Sahihs, gives no size or distance either. Land taken wrongly will hang round the wrongdoer's neck from seven earths. Ibn Kathir, citing it, rejects reading them as seven regions of this earth. So they are not a map of the lands we live on. The five hundred years between the earths is a measure. But Ibn Kathir gives it from Ibn Mas'ud and others, not from the Qur'an. The reports that give it from the Prophet (ﷺ) are weak. Al-Tirmidhi, who records one of them, called it gharib (known through one line of narrators), and its chain is broken. So that measure is not the Qur'an's teaching. Ibn Kathir also reports Ibn Abbas, a Companion who explained the Qur'an, saying that each earth has a prophet like ours. That is a Companion's saying, not the Qur'an or the Prophet's (ﷺ) words. Al-Bayhaqi, an 11th-century hadith scholar, judged the chain of its shorter wording, "the like of Abraham", sound to Ibn Abbas. But he called it utterly anomalous (shadh), since he knew no one who corroborates its narrator. Whatever it says, it is a Companion's anomalous saying, not the Qur'an. Muslims have never ranked a Companion's saying with the Qur'an. The Bhagavata ranks the Puranas with the Vedas themselves. The Puranas give seven named continents in rings around Jambu-dwipa, each twice the size of the last, with named seas, kings and four castes. That is a map of this earth, and it can be compared with the earth.
Where it lands — The Qur'an and the authentic hadith give the seven earths a number and nothing more. The measures and the peoples come from other reports; the Puranas put theirs in the scripture itself.
Qur'an 88:20 — Surat al-Ghashiya (The Overwhelming), verse 20
“And at the Earth, how it is spread out?”
Cited for
Your Qur'an says the earth is spread out (88:20). That is a flat earth, no better than the Puranas' disc of rings.
The response
The verse says the earth is spread out. That is how the ground looks to the people who walk on it, and the verse gives no shape, size or edge. The Qur'an sets the earth on no pillars and puts no rings of seas around it. Muslim scholars such as Ibn Hazm, a scholar of Muslim Spain who died in 1064, taught that the earth is round. The site's page on whether the Qur'an says the earth is flat answers this in full.
Where it lands — "Spread out" describes the ground underfoot and gives no measure. The Puranas give named rings with sizes, and those can be checked.
Perspectives
The Puranas are smriti, below the Veda
Revelation is the Veda. The Puranas are smriti, remembered tradition, written for devotion and moral teaching. Their accounts of the world are not the heart of the faith, and a Hindu is not bound by them.
Many Hindus, following the rule that revelation (shruti) outranks tradition (smriti); the Arya Samaj goes further
Vivekananda told the Parliament of Religions that the Hindus received their religion through their revelation, the Vedas.
Rebuttal
Suppose revelation is the Veda. But the Puranas rank themselves above remembered tradition. The Bhagavata calls them the Fifth Veda, and claims equal rank with the Vedas. So setting them aside admits that books much of the tradition treats as a Veda are wrong, where the senses can check them.
Dayananda, founder of the Arya Samaj, called the Puranas that enjoin image worship contrary to the Vedas.
Rebuttal
Dayananda objected to the Puranas that enjoin image worship. That does not correct what they say about the sky. Whoever sets these chapters aside agrees they are wrong. Whoever keeps them must answer for the order of the sun and the moon.
The Puranic cosmos is symbolic
The Puranas speak of the world in the language of devotion and of higher realms. Bhu-mandala, the great earth-disc of the Bhagavata, is a map of the planets' orbits. It is drawn in the imagery of geography, and is not a naive picture of a flat earth.
Some modern Vaishnava writers, such as Richard L. Thompson
The rings of Bhu-mandala match the orbits of the planets closely. So the Bhagavata holds real knowledge of the solar system, in code.
Rebuttal
The text gives a measure and a starting point: the sun is a lakh (a hundred thousand) of yojanas from the earth. It also gives the outer continents kings and four castes, and orbits have neither. And Brahmins read it plainly. Around 1030, al-Biruni found them reading in their Puranas that the sun is lower than the moon.
Hindu astronomers knew the truth
India was not ignorant of the sky. The Surya Siddhanta gives the right order of the planets. And Aryabhata and Varahamihira explained eclipses by the moon and the earth's shadow.
Hindus who point to the Siddhanta astronomers
The Surya Siddhanta puts the moon lowest, below Mercury, Venus and the sun, and the asterisms highest.
Rebuttal
True, and India's astronomers deserve honour. But they got the sky right by leaving the Puranas behind. The Surya Siddhanta reverses the Puranas' order. Where the Puranas and the astronomers' book disagree on something anyone can see, it is the Puranas that are wrong.
Varahamihira explained an eclipse of the moon as the moon entering the earth's shadow. He explained an eclipse of the sun as the moon covering it.
Rebuttal
Granted. Yet Brahmagupta defended the Head as the cause of eclipses in the name of the Veda and the Smriti. Al-Biruni says he read in his Puranas that the sun is lower than the moon. The correction came against the texts, not from them.
The Islamic perspective
The Puranas make claims about the sky and the earth that can be measured, and they are wrong. The moon is not beyond the sun, and there are no ring-shaped continents with their castes. India's own astronomers had to leave these chapters behind to get the sky right. On the same subject, the Qur'an gives no distance and no order for the sun and the moon. It says each runs in its own orbit, on a course worked out exactly. And it points from them to the God (﷾) who made them.
The Vishnu Purana measures the sun and the moon from the earth. It puts the moon beyond the sun and the lunar constellations beyond the moon. The Bhagavata also puts the moon above the sun.
The moon is the nearest body in the sky; the sun is about 390 times farther.
The Vishnu Purana describes seven ringed continents and seas, each twice the last, with kings and four castes.
The Bhagavata names the Itihasas and Puranas the Fifth Veda. And it claims equal rank with the Vedas in spiritual knowledge.
Brahmagupta defended the Head as the cause of eclipses, appealing to the Veda and the Smriti. He named Aryabhata and Varahamihira as teaching otherwise, though he himself worked out eclipses from the shadows. Al-Biruni said the Brahmins read in their Puranas that the sun is lower than the moon.
The Qur'an gives no distance or order for the sun and the moon. It says each swims in its own orbit and follows a computed course.
The Qur'an teaches that the sun and the moon are signs of their Creator, to whom alone prostration belongs.